ABSTRACT
This case study examines the importance of war and national security issues for nation building. The Dominicans fought a succession of wars against Haiti and Spain, and fought among themselves over the role of the United States. These wars defined Dominican national identity in terms of who they were not: They were not citizens of Haiti, Spain, or the United States. The chapter also details the limits of Dominican state building. Internal factions favoring a strong legislature versus others favoring a strong executive neutralized each other and inhibited state building in a succession of short-lived governments. In the mid-nineteenth century, the agricultural elite coalesced into a political party that encouraged the development of the plantation economy through foreign investment, immigration, and railway construction. Growing financial and political instability, however, triggered an eight-year U.S. military occupation. The U.S. intervention transformed the Dominican Republic by creating a competent police force, constructing a national highway system, and investing in public health and education. Shortly after the U.S. departure, the army chief of staff, Rafael Trujillo, became dictator for life. He funded numerous public works, public health, and infrastructure projects. At his assassination, he left a legacy of economic development but little improvement on the incomplete state institutions inherited from the United States, so that political successions remain highly destabilizing.
